Lord Hurin wrote:
BlackMist wrote:
No cheesy combos - What is cheesy? Can you define? I don't even use that word because at a tournament level you will often find that every army in the top 10 (or so) is in some way using overpowered combos, underpriced units - does it mean it's cheesy? NO - it means the player knows how to exploit the game and get the most out of it. It means he's a powergamer? Perhaps. But most of all it means he knows the game so well and is such a good army builder that he deserves that spot. At the same time most of the time a player using the so called "Cheesy combos" an finishing high in a competition is also a good player, because otherwise his combo would be beaten by a better player not using any - that's just how the game works, a great player will always be better than a noob using overpowered combos found on the internet.
Well, seeing as this is a house rule and would not apply to tournaments I like it. I hate feeling like Aragorn, Gimli and a unit of Khazad Guard are a must-take in any Good force. Likewise, Khamul and Gothmog in an Evil one. The point is, if it's a fun game with your mates and nothing is at stake why bother going to all that trouble to incorporate the overpowered and undercosted units?
I agree, we pretty much only ever play with some version of houserules now. None of the other games we play gives such a significant role to certain combos so we tend to think they undermine the parts of WOTR that actually make it a good wargame. The only issue I have with using houserules is one of getting them widely accepted but I've found even a very 'light' set of guidelines can do a lot. AFAIK events (or the better community organised ones, anyway) generally have some sort of comp-scoring or list building guidelines in place, anyway.
In any case, no one considers WOTR a 'tournament' game around here. There are much better alternatives and we play WOTR because it is a fun 'Beer and Pretzels' game to play in the evenings.
There have been a couple of threads on Onering with suggestions and some good ideas in there.